


More than He Wanted to Know

by blueharlequin



Series: In The Know [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Crack, Fanfiction, Gen, Humor, Innuendo, Parody, Pre-Slash, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueharlequin/pseuds/blueharlequin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penelope explains to Spencer the importance of tagging your fanfics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More than He Wanted to Know

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Plus qu'il n'aurait voulu savoir](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8761813) by [Malohkeh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malohkeh/pseuds/Malohkeh)



“Hey Garcia, what are you doing?” He asked as she sat typing away on his couch.

“Oh I’m just posting this fanfic I wrote. Just let me get this done and we can watch the movie.”

Reid blushed. Garcia had come over his apartment one day to hang out and brought her laptop claiming she had something she needed to finish. He had made the mistake of leaning over and reading what she was typing. Dean and Castiel from Supernatural were admittedly very handsome men but he had never thought of them like _that_ before. When the petite blonde had realised he was blushing from what he read she launched into a dissertation about fanfiction. Spencer hadn’t known there was a whole internet culture and several websites dedicated to ‘shipping’ as she called it. He had learned some fascinating and disturbing things about fangirls (and guys, she had pointed out) and their ability to pretty much create gay relationships between characters out of just about anything.

“So is this that one you were writing last time?”

“Oh no, this one’s a Firefly fanfic with Mal and Simon.”

“Really” he mumbled, intrigued but unwilling to admit it. The thought of the brave leader and the smart young doctor sort of turned him on. “So what are you doing here?” He pointed to the form she was filling out.

“Well, I’m labeling and tagging my fic so people can narrow their search parameters and find the stuff they are looking for. Kind of like when you guys call me and I am able to narrow down suspects with each specific piece of information you give me.”

“Okay.” Reid had concluded by this point that it may have been more than he wanted to know yet for some reason it still interested him enough for her to continue. “Keep going.”

“So, Rating, Explicit cause there is plenty of sex in this. This next one will be the first choice since none of the other labels apply. Fandom, Firefly of course. If I was doing a crossover I could put that in there, say you know, with like Doctor Who or something.”

“How would that work?” Now he was a little more than curious.

“Oh sweetie, don’t you think that a show that prides itself on time travel to everywhere could show up in another fandom? I mean think about how hot it would be if Captain Jack Harkness showed up and seduced Simon.” Reid nodded, blushing a bit as he thought of the two handsome men together. He pushed it aside for the moment not wanting to embarrass himself with a ‘problem’ in front of Garcia.

“Okay so the next one, Category. This is definitely M/M or Male/Male. I think it’s pretty self explanatory, though I’ve always wondered what ‘Other’ mean. Probably asexual or pansexual, it could really be a bunch of things.” Reid wondered briefly about her last fic with Castiel and if it was correct to put him the M/M category or the Other category. He supposed since his vessel was male it made sense.

“Reid?”

“Oh sorry Garcia, I was just thinking.” He looked at the next line, “So relationship?”

“That can be any and all if it is part of the main storyline. So the first pairing I’m going to put is Malcolm Reynolds/Simon Tam because that’s who are getting it on in this fic. But if this wasn’t so pwp then I would add friendships or stuff like Wash and Zoe’s relationship.”

“Pwp?”

“I’ll get to that in a second. The next one is for characters.”

“How does that differ from the relationships line? Don’t all the characters have some sort of interactions with each other?”

“Yes but this is if you want to put who will be in this fic. So like I will still list Mal and Simon since they are the main characters and if it was a story where Jayne or River were interacting with them quite a bit, say Jayne was jealous or River was trying to get them together then, I would list them too.”

“Okay,” Spencer could see how that made a difference.

Penelope was getting all wound up as she moved onto the final part of the Tags section. “Okay so this is like the best section to help tag your fic correctly. So this one has Slash, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Kissing, PWP …”

Spencer’s head spun as Garcia rattled off a litany of dirty things that he only thought of in the privacy of his bedroom. Interrupting her, he asked again, “Pwp?”

“Oh yeah, it means Porn Without Plot or Plot, What Plot? It’s basically a tag that tells people this story was written just for the enjoyment of reading about two characters having sex.”

“Ah,” he answered weakly. He was beginning to see why fanfiction was so mesmerising. He looked at the long list of tags on the screen. “You have all of that in this story?” Despite the fact that he knew he was digging himself deeper he continued to quiz her.

“Yeah, in fact I think I might be missing some. Do you want to read it and see if I missed any?”

Reid sputtered, he wasn’t going to read something sexually explicit while she was here. “Ah, um, do you mind if I read it later? You can add more after posting right?” Penelope grinned as she realised why he was so mortified.

“Yeah, I can.” He watched as she scrolled down, entering the rest of the info.

She reached a line and Spencer couldn’t help himself, “Who’s BAMF212?”

Garcia chuckled, “I’m gifting this to him because it’s going to help me collect on a bet.”

“What bet?”

She smirked and avoided the question by interjecting, “You know. If our lives were a TV crime drama I bet you there would be tons of fanfiction about it.” She smiled dreamily thinking of her chocolate god. Penelope turned back to the screen, “I wonder if I should also put Boss/Employee Relationship as one of the tags, because the genius doctor does work for him.”

Reid stared at her, his face slowly turning bright red. She turned back to her laptop and finished pasting the story into the window. She grinned as Reid made an excuse to get up and make coffee.

When she left for the night Garcia turned and smiled at him. “I bookmarked my profile on your computer.” Reid didn’t want to know how she had accomplished that since his laptop had been in the other room the entire evening. As she walked towards the stairs he heard her call out to him. “Oh, by the way, Hotch loves watching Firefly.”

* * *

 

Later that night Garcia logged on and checked out the comments left on her new fic. Scrolling down, two entries caught her eye. The first one was from a new user ‘theotherdoctor’ and it read – “You might want to add Love Confessions and Developing Relationship to the list of tags.” The second one was from ‘BAMF212’ – Thanks for the gift, it worked out well. Don’t forget to collect from ‘crimewriter’ your ‘I told you so.’ Penelope cackled in glee as she replied both, all the while wondering if they had taken any inspiration from her writing. 

  


**Author's Note:**

> If it seems like Spencer’s being a bit dopey in this, it’s cause he is a bit overwhelmed. It’s pretty much how all of my (smart) friends react to learning about fanfiction.


End file.
